LOS ANGELES, United States — Michael J. Fox
was awarded an honorary Oscar on Saturday for his campaign to fund Parkinson’s
research since being diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease at the peak
of his acting career.
اضافة اعلان
Fox received the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual statuette for humanitarian work by a film industry figure at a
black-tie gala crammed with Hollywood’s biggest stars in Los Angeles.
“You’re making me shake, stop it,” joked Fox as he
received a standing ovation, before describing his award as “a wholly
unexpected honor”.
Canadian actor Fox, 61, shot to stardom in the “Back
to the Future” films while portraying time-traveling high-school student Marty
McFly.
The trilogy
between 1985 and 1990 thrust DeLorean time machines and gravity-defying
hoverboards into the popular imagination.
In 1991, at the age of 29, Fox was diagnosed with
Parkinson’s and told he had 10 years left to work.
About 10 million people worldwide have Parkinson’s,
which erodes motor functions.
Woody Harrelson, who starred alongside Fox in the
film “Doc Hollywood” at the time of his diagnosis, told the audience on
Saturday: “I just couldn’t believe it because there’s such an invincible,
superhuman quality about Mike.”
“Well, he never missed a step, never wallowed in
self-pity... instead, he turned a chilling diagnosis into a courageous
mission,” he added.
Fox, who first achieved fame on NBC’s 1980s sitcom
“Family Ties”, publicly disclosed his illness in 1998, during the run of his
second hit TV series “Spin City”.
He semi-retired a few years later, dedicating
himself to his Parkinson’s foundation and raising more than $1 billion for
research.
“It was clear that an aging, under-served patient
base could use some help,” he said. “There was nothing heroic about what I
did.”
Fox, who permanently retired from acting in 2020,
has suffered multiple broken bones and injuries from falls in recent months,
requiring surgery on his shoulder.
But he walked to and from the stage on Saturday,
asking his wife and former “Family Ties” co-star Tracy Pollan to help carry his
statuette off.
‘Thank the Academy’
The honorary
Oscars are
handed out every year to recognize lifetime achievement, and were spun off into
a separate event in 2009 to declutter the main show’s packed schedule.
Previous winners of Fox’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian
Award — handed out by the Academy most years since 1957 — include Angelina
Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Also awarded a golden statuette for career
achievement on Saturday was Diane Warren, the songwriter behind hits such as
Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, who has been nominated for 13
competitive Oscars without winning.
“I’ve waited 34 years to say this — I’d like to
thank the Academy,” Warren said to raucous applause. “I’ve had a lot of
speeches that got crumpled up in my pocket,” she joked
Peter Weir, the Australian director who made global
smash hits such as “Witness”, “Dead Poets Society”, and The Truman Show”, made
a rare return to Hollywood to collect his Oscar.
Euzhan Palcy, a filmmaker from the French-speaking
Caribbean island of Martinique, received a statuette for a career including “A
Dry White Season” — her 1989 film about South African apartheid that lured
Marlon Brando out of retirement.
Palcy, who has largely stopped making films, said
she became “so tired of being told I was a pioneer” and “hearing praise for
being the first of too many firsts but denied the chance to make the movies”
she wanted to make.
“My stories are not black, my stories are not white
— they are universal, they are colorful,” she said.
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